I would just like to ask you to explain yourself
when you use the terms Israeli agression and israeli wars. I
certainly hope you are not referring to the War of Independance, the 6-Day
War, the Yom Kippur War, and the War of Attrition. These
wars were all declared on Israel but the Arab world, not the
other way around. If you are referring to the pre-emptive strike
by Israel at Lebanon in 1982 when it took land from the North, I should
remind you that Lebanon and Syria had been threatening Israel a
long time, had ammassed some 10,000 soldiers to its southern border, and
had been firing katucha rockets into Israel proper for
the past decade. Certainly these cannot be condisered Israeli
aggression, these acts have been Israel defending itself against
enemies who had been attacking them.

On
a final note, I do believe in a two-state solution, where there are
two democratic states living side by side. I believe that this
type of government should be in place not only for Palestinians but in
the entire Arab World. This will allow for each citizen, men and
women to have the right to choose thier own leaders and policies.

I believe that both Israel and Palestine have the right to a state,
and have a right to elect thier own leaders. By allowing 4
million Arabs to become citizens into Israel, these new citizens will
choose an Arab leader, and the entire purpose of the State of Israel
will be demolished. Every major religion on this planet has a
right to self-governance, and every major religion has at least one
country which would be considered religious, Muslims have many,
Christians have one, and so must the Jews.

Hassan El-Najjar:

The Zionist aggression against
the Palestinian people started in 1897 in Basle, Switzerland, when the
founders of Zionism decided to establish a Jewish homeland in
Palestine, on the expense of the Palestinian people. The 1947 UN
Partition Resolution gave the two warring parties a state for each one
of them with clearly defined territories (See the map in the Documents
section). The 1948 war, which you describe as the war of independence
and I describe as An-Nakba (the Calamate or the Disaster), is the
original example of Israeli aggression. By the end of that war, Israel
has annexed the Palestinian Arab territories of Galilee, Auja, parts
of Gaza Strip, and parts of the West Bank, all of which were parts of
the Palestinian Arab state according to the Partition resolution.
Israeli forces had attacked Palestinian territories, particularly
Galilee, well before the Arab states entered the war. If you go back
to the memoirs of all Israeli leaders, you'll find that they wanted to
annex Jerusalem, which was in the middle of the Arab territory of the
West Bank. To do that they penetrated the West Bank to Jerusalem, that
is why there is a corridor linking Israel to Jerusalm. Finally, the
Israeli forces, the Haganah, had a plan known as Plan Dalet, according
to which they attacked Palestinian villages to evict Palestinians from
them, in our time now we call this ethnic cleansing. All this has
nothing to do with the intervention of other Arab states in the war.
The Israeli aggression has continued ever since by not allowing
Palestinian refugees, who were evicted by Israelis from their towns
and villages, to return to their property,. That is why the problem
has continued until today.

The October 31, 1956 war, in which Israel
participated with Britain and France in attacking Egypt and the
Palestinian Gaza Strip, was Israel's second major war of aggression
against Arabs. Because you have not mentioned it, I assume that you
agree that it was an aggression.

The June 5, 1967 war, that you
call the six-day war, was the third major Israeli war of aggression
against Arabs (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and the Palestinian people in the
West Bank and Gaza). It was justified by Israeli leaders and their
supporters as a pre-emptive strike. Sharon still uses this type of
justification by following his policy of the assassination of
Hamas leaders. He justifies that policy by "pre-empting"
them from doing any harm to Israelis in the future. It is an ancient
policy of aggression used by the enemies of ancient Israelites. The
Pharoah followed it when he ordered the killing of all newly born
children to prevent (pre-empt) the prophecy from being fulfilled, but
God saved Moses and the prophecy was fulfilled. Arabs did not declare
that war on Israel, you cannot find any historian or even any Israeli
leader who would agree with you that Arabs declared that war. It was
an Israeli war of aggression, launched for expansion and justified as
a preemptive strike.

The war of attrition that the
Egyptians engaged the Israelis on the banks of the Suez Canal between
1967 and 1973 was the Egyptian resistance to the Israeli occupation of
Sinai, which continued as an aggression against Egypt during that
period. What would you expect the Egyptians, the most ancient nation
on earth, to do? Did you want them to submit to the will of the
Israeli invaders? They couldn't allow themselves to be humiliated. So,
this was nothing but resistance to the Israeli aggression which
started on June 5, 1967.

The October 1973 War, that you
refer to as Yom Kippur War, was an Egyptian and Syrian war to liberate
their territories that Israel occupied on June 5, 1967. How can you
ignore the original Israeli aggression and look at the reaction to it
as an aggression? This is exactly the problem of today between the
Sharon government and the Palestinian people. Sharon wants to continue
assassinating Hamas leaders and killing Palestinian civilians as a
collateral damage without receiving back their reaction, suicide
bombing, rocket launching, and attacks on Israeli soldier. Many
Israelis still insist not to see their aggrression, as
represented by their military occupation of the Arab territories and
the subjugation of the Palestinian people to their military rule. All
what they focus on is the Arab reaction to their aggression.*

Then came the war on Lebanon,
which started with the 1978 invasion of South Lebanon. It was aimed at
crushing the Palesinian resistance there. Palestinian organizations
quickly retreated to the north and Israeli forces occupied parts of
south Lebanon. The Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation of
the West Bank and Gaza Strip continued, with its headquarters in South
Lebanon.

As a solution, Sharon convinced
Begin to invade south Lebanon to crush the PLO once and for all.
Again, the Israelis think only in terms of military power, not in
terms of ending their military occupation and the injustice it brings
to peopole. Sharon double crossed Begin by going to Beirut, following
the PLO to the Lebanese capital. If that was not aggression, what is
aggression? You invade a country and almost destroy its capital,
killing tens of thousands of people and injuring hunreds of thousands
of people and still don't see that this is aggression!

Then, even after forcing the PLO
out of Lebanon, Israeli forces still continued their occupation of
south Lebanon, which triggered the emergence of Lebanes resistance to
liberate the south. First Amal emerged, then Hizballah became the
prominent resistance movement until Israeli occupation forces were
forced out of Lebanon, in June 2000. The Lebanese did not occupy parts
of Israel. Their resistance was aimed at the aggressive Israeli
occupation. When the Israelis withdrew, there were no more
confrontations between the two parties. Only few attacks occurred in
the sill occupied Shib'a Farms.

In brief, all the wars launched
in the Middle East were Israeli wars of aggression or reistance to
these wars. It seems that the Middle East, and the world, will not see
peace until Israelis and their supporters acknowledge that you cannot
invade and occupy other nations without triggering resistance. Only
when Israelis become peaceful people, the Middle East and the world
will enjoy peace. I hope and pray that this happen as soon as
possible.

I agree with you, and I think
the whole world also agrees that the two-state solution is not only
the only feasable one now, but the most urgent step to stop the
bloodshed on both sides. However, I know and you know that Israeli
settlers and their militant supporters in the US do not believe in
that. They want the land without the people, which leads to nothing
but the continution of the conflict. They should not be allowed to
continue in control of this bloody game.

Having said that, I do not
believe that the two-state solution is a perfect solution on the
long-run. The problems of refugees, borders, resources, and Jerusalem
will prevent the two states from complete separation. Cooperation in
all aspects of life is inevitable, particularly in the economic field.
That is why it is wrong to have all this bloodshed and all this
bitterness before the temporary separation, the Palestinian
independence. This means that insisting on the Jewishness of Israel is
not right. Palestinian Arabs who hold the Israeli citizenship
constitute about 20 percent of the Israelis right now. If the state is
to be exclusively Jewish, does this mean that they will lose their
citizenship? Does this mean that they have to convert to Judaism? I
don't think you want to do that. The future is for more pluralism,
more peace, and more integration. When peace prevails and people enjoy
it after a century-long conflict, they will be more tolerant and more
cooperative. At least this is what I think and I hope more people will
agree with me. Peace.

----------------------------------------

* This is exacly what has happened in the most
recent round of violence btween Israelis and Palestinians. It started
when Israeli forces assassinted two Hamas local leaders in Tulkarem.
This triggered the Palestinian attack on Israeli soldiers in Beit
Hanoon-Erez chechpoint. Then, Sharon ordered the failed assassination
attempt on Al-Rantissi, which triggered the Jerusalem suicide bombing.
Then, Israel assassinated two Hamas activists in the Zaytoon
neighborhood in Gaza, which triggered the Hamas missile attack on an
Israeli neighborhood north of Gaza Strip. Finally, Israel assassinated
the Hamas activist, Al-Lidawi, yesterday (6/13/03). Now, it's Hamas's
turn to retaliate.